Staff from resorts greeting arrivals with music, dance

December 18, 2012

Arriving passengers at Kahului Airport are being greeted by festive Christmas music and dancing this week, courtesy of the Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau and five Maui resorts.

Staff at the five resorts, who often perform for visitors at their properties during the holiday season, have brought their music, dancing and holiday cheer to the airport, said Terryl Vencl, executive director of the Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau, on Monday.

The staff began greeting visitors in baggage claim with lei and their sounds of Christmas on Monday. The musical greetings will continue from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m Wednesday and Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m Friday, she said.

The effort by the hotel workers is meant as a welcome during the heavily traveled week before Christmas, Vencl said.

The greetings at the airport began last year. After seeing a video of people singing to visitors in a mall setting, Bill Countryman, general manager at the Wailea Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, thought it would be a great thing to do here on Maui, said Vencl.

So last year, the Christmas greeting was set up in the rotunda area of the airport, near the clock at the end of the escalators from the security checkpoint.

"You know how . . . when people arrive they do a beeline for baggage claim," said Vencl. "But these folks actually were stopping to take pictures and, oh my goodness, they loved it."